THE BANKRUPTCY OF INTELLECTUALISM
We have now struggled through the quagmires of intellectualist
philosophy, and found that neither in its Psychology, which divided the
mind's integrity into a heap of faculties, and comminuted it into a
dust-cloud of sensations; nor in its Epistemology, which ignored the
will to know and the value of knowing; nor in its Logic, which
abstracted thought wholly from the thinking and the thinker, and so
finally from, all meaning, could man find a practicable route of
philosophic progress. But our struggles will not have been in vain if
they have left us with a willingness to try the pragmatist alternative,
and convinced us that it is not a wanton innovation, but the only path
of salvation for the scientific spirit.
But before we venture on it, it will be well to restore confidence in
the solvency of human thought by analysing the causes of the bankruptcy
of Intellectualism and exposing the extravagance of the assumptions
which conducted to it.
Was it not, after all, an unwarranted assumption that severed the
intellect from its natural connection with human activity? No doubt it
seemed to simplify the problem to suppose that the functioning of the
intellect could be studied as a thing apart, and unrelated to the
general context of the vital functions. Again, it was to simplify to
assume that thought could be considered apart from the personality of
the human thinker. But it should not have been forgotten that it is
possible to pay too dearly for simplifications and abstractions, and
that they all involve a risk, which the event may show should never have
been taken. So it is in this case. Its rash assumptions confront
Intellectualism with a host of problems it cannot attack. It can do
nothing to assuage the conflict of opinions which all claim truth with
equal confidence. It cannot understand the correction of error which is
continually proceeding. Nor can it understand, either the existence of
error or the meaning of truth, or the means of distinguishing between
them. It has no means of testing and confuting even the wildest and
maddest assertions. It cannot discriminate between the intuitions of the
sage and of the lunatic. It is forced to view energy of will in knowing
as a source merely of corruption, and when it finds that as a psychic
fact willing is ineradicable, it must conclude that we are
constitutionally incapable of that passive reflection of reality which
it regards as the _sine qua non_ of truth. Hence, if disinterestedness
is the condition of knowing, knowledge is impossible. And it is so
entangled in its unintelligible theory of truth as a copying of reality
that, rather than renounce it, when it finds that human knowing is _not_
copying, it prefers a surrender to Scepticism.
Yet is not its whole procedure a signal example of human arbitrariness
and perversity? We professed to be impelled by logical necessity at
every step, but were free to escape from all our perplexities by
adopting the pragmatic inferences from them. The Pragmatic Method of
observing the consequences readily suggests the means of discriminating
between truth and error, of sifting values and of testing claims. And,
though not infallible, it is adequate to all our needs. The pragmatic
notion that _Truth is practical_ closes the artificial gulf between the
theoretic and the practical side of life, and assigns to truth a
biological function and vital value. The humanist contention that _Truth
is human_ rescues man from the despondency in which his failure to grasp
absolute truth had left him. The Protagorean dictum that _Man is the
measure of all things_ assures him that _his_ knowledge may become
adequate to _his_ reality, and that the value of truths and the
differences between truth and error also are susceptible of estimation.
True, this policy averts the bankruptcy of the intellect by scaling down
the intolerable charges on it. True, practical knowledge is not
absolute; but if it is enough to live by, is it not better to live by it
than to be lured on to perish in the deserts of Scepticism by the
_mirage_ of an absolute truth not humanly attainable? True, verification
is not 'proof,' but as its conclusions are not incorrigible, its defects
are not fatal, and its demands are not impracticable. True, no truth and
no reality are wholly 'objective,' in the sense of wholly indifferent to
our action; but to say that the human and 'subjective' factor in all
knowledge must be taken into account does not preclude our apprehending
and measuring an 'objective' world as real as, and more knowable than,
any other theory can offer.
Thus the proposals of Pragmatism for reconstructing the business of the
intellect, and rescuing it from the bankruptcy of Intellectualism, are
not unreasonable. They open out to it a prospect of recovering its
credit and its usefulness by returning to the service of Life.